In many industrial applications, it is necessary and/or desirable to be able to separate two classifiable materials that have become or are naturally commingled.
As one example, a material may be utilized in an application such that it becomes contaminated but is otherwise reusable if it can be reclaimed. It is known that in almost all commercial settings it is important to economize in order to maintain competitive costs and, additionally, it is equally important to limit commercial waste that often presents significant expensive disposal problems. For these reasons, there have been significant efforts to develop techniques for reclaiming and/or separating materials in a cost effective and efficient manner.
For certain applications, there is a need to separate a heavier material from fines that are lighter in weight. This typically cannot be accomplished by utilizing an elementary technique such as screening inasmuch as the fines are commonly interspersed throughout the heavier material and, due to their lighter weight, the fines will not settle to the level of the screen to pass through leaving only the heavier material. As a result, it is recognized that applications of this type require techniques that are far more sophisticated.
Despite this recognition, it is also recognized that the competing considerations of cost and overall effectiveness are of paramount importance. It is likewise often a key factor that the technique for separation and recovery of classifiable materials be sufficiently effective to handle the volume of combined materials that are typically encountered in any particular industrial application(s). In other words, the technique must be capable of separating and recovering classifiable materials in a time frame compatible with the industrial application(s).
As one example, shot is utilized in the manufacture of castings to finish the castings by subjecting them to a shot blast treatment. This finishing technique is highly effective but, by its very nature, produces refuse in the form of fines and dust that must be separated from the shot if it is to be suitable for reuse. Still additionally, the large volume of shot that is required for shot blast treatments means that a significant volume of material must be reclaimed.
In order to achieve the reclamation of the shot as a reusable material in a timely manner, it is necessary to separate and remove the fines as a waste product in a high volume operation.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the foregoing problems and achieving one or more of the resulting objects.